India’s Quiet Counter-China Strategy

[cross1993]

I think the Japanese can not be defeated by war, war will only make the Japanese to rebuild their courage and tenacity.
What is the greatest enemy of the Japanese? I think you know.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

I think the Japanese can not be defeated by war, war will only make the Japanese to rebuild their courage and tenacity.
What is the greatest enemy of the Japanese? I think you know.

Is it complacency?

 

[cross1993]

Is it complacency?

No, it is not.

生于忧患, 死于安乐.
生於憂患, 死於安樂.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I wonder if China is a bully.

They appear so since they are pursuing their national strategy.

Given their booming economy and military advancement, it is natural that they would like to be influential in the region and then in the world.

However, if they are treading on toes, then on whose toes they tread should get together to prevent it happening so. We are seeing signs of the same with nudging from the US.

I would say, in a lighter view, let the weaker ones 'gang up' against the 'neighbourhood bully'!

And may the best one win!

 

[Aramsogo]

look at how agrressive the chinese are now they want war?

"We will beat Japanese soldiers's descendants"

LOL yeah dude ohhh runs for your life boys and girls super duper chinese pla is coming
oh yeah and they got nukes.

dam i am out dude, only playing around... take a chill pill man. when did i bring up anything about war with china

see my friend from across the world, how aggressive and irrational our chinese friends are? they get sensitive real quick and then they want war.

I am sorry my chinese friends. i come in peace

Your posts are laced with the typical Sinophobia common to the China-bashers on this forum. China's rise must really bother you inside. We live in a nuclear age (as you very well know!) and these simple naval exercises hardly bothers China. Stay safe buddy.

 

[Vinod2070]

Seems like you guys are having an interesting chit chat.

Like we do with our own friends across the border.

 

[Developereo]

Time to be a better neighbor, India. If you don't, China will. - CSMonitor.com

President Obama's trip to India underscored India's importance in global security and global finances – a democratic counter to an aggressive China. But India's poor foreign policy and botched regional relations have been holding it back.

By Maha Rafi Atal / November 9, 2010

New York
On Sunday, President Obama met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. They discussed opportunities for expanded Indo-American trade, and both leaders highlighted the strategic importance of a strong and prosperous India in the face of Chinese expansion. But Prime Minister Singh did not acknowledge, and President Obama did not bring up, the most important obstacle to India’s success: its poor regional relationships.

From the outset, India’s promise as a rival to China has been that it is a power apart. It could not beat Beijing in a race for pure growth or military might. But in a contest over principles, India’s democratic progress offers the region a model that China cannot match. India should be a partner for countries seeking a fair alternative to alliance with its authoritarian neighbor.

But India is losing this contest, and it is losing it close to home. Now, as President Obama leaves India, it is worth asking: Why isn’t South Asia’s richest country leading more effectively in South Asia?

China is flexing its muscle
China is certainly flexing its muscle. Last month, it sought to restrict exports of rare earth minerals to Japan, made overtures to a secession movement in southern Sudan, and wrestled with the G20 over its currency and trade imbalance.

Nowhere has China been more assertive than in South Asia. In a strategy it calls the “string of pearls,” China is building ports and infrastructure in Bangladesh and Pakistan; digging up minerals in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and refining hydropower in Nepal and Afghanistan.

According to the International Monetary Fund, China’s trade with India’s neighbors totaled $16 billion in 2008, growing at 14 percent annually. India’s regional trade was barely holding steady at $11 billion

India's overconfidence
Yet China’s success in the Subcontinent reflects India’s own foreign policy blunders.

First, India has been overconfident, assuming that regional neighbors would naturally choose it over Beijing without providing them with positive incentives to do so. That is the case in Bangladesh, a desperately poor country created with the assistance of Indian forces, whose multiple requests for economic aid and greater bilateral trade India has rebuffed. While Bangladeshis wonder why India does not do more, India wonders why Bangladesh is not more appreciative.

Beijing capitalizes on the gap between them.

Interfering and overbearing
Second, India has been overbearing, giving selective support to political movements inside neighboring states.

In Nepal, India backed a feudal aristocracy for four decades, reinstating the monarchy by force after repeated popular revolts. It trained the Nepalese military, and orchestrated political marriages between Nepalese aristocrats and wealthy Indian families. Pushing India out became the top priority of the Maoist guerilla movement that has majority support and an informal alliance with China.

As the UN peace mission holding Nepal together prepares to close in January, India is pitted against China to control the postwar settlement, with Nepal’s critical water resources (about 83,000 megawatts of hydropower) at stake. The confrontation is reminiscent of the situation in Burma (Myanmar), where China and India spent $10 billion last year to secure the support of a military junta guilty of abusing its own subjects.

As the weaker power, India has more to fear from these confrontations.

Shutting out the region
Third, India has been suspicious, choosing to shut out the region when relations go sour rather than addressing underlying tensions.

Earlier this year, the government announced an immigration regime that will restrict multiple entry visas. Multinationals have protested the move as a blow to business travelers from the West and the Persian Gulf, but its greatest victims are migrant laborers from Bangladesh and Nepal. Many will turn to China for employment instead; others will enter illegally, bringing crime with them.

Nowhere has suspicion been more crippling to Indian policy than in the case of Pakistan. So long as Kashmiri militants – with historic ties to Pakistan – continue to operate inside India, India maintains it cannot meet with Pakistan over the disputed border, or over critical resources like water and gas. But it is the ongoing dispute that creates the very basis for this militancy. In a country with porous mountain borders, such threats are virtually impossible to block out by force

Yet New Delhi means to try.

US as accomplice to India's bad policy
Unfortunately, the United States has been an accomplice to India’s regional isolationism. In 2008, pressure from Washington shut down a natural gas project involving India, Pakistan, and Iran. Last year, Present Obama briefly considered appointing Amb. Richard Holbrooke as a regional envoy, with the authority to conduct dialogue between India and Pakistan, but narrowed his brief to Afghanistan and Pakistan over Indian opposition.

Asked about Pakistan at a town hall meeting in New Delhi on Sunday, the president reiterated that the United States would not intervene in the Kashmir dispute. Yet without an Indo-Pak peace, no strategy for Afghanistan can move forward.

The trappings of global status, without the substance
The West has lavished India with the trappings of global status: a seat at the G20, a temporary seat at the UN Security Council that may open the door to a permanent one, a controversial US-India nuclear deal, and two pending defense trades worth more than $15 billion dollars.

To read Indian newspapers or speak to diplomats is to believe that these gestures represent global influence. But in fact, they signal the rise of a Potemkin hegemon. If India is encircled by China’s string of pearls, and if migrants and militants compromise its borders, then it will be forced to waste its economic resources putting out local fires, unable to project power further afield.

Moreover, as they watch this regional saga, potential partners in Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia see India as a country that treats its neighbors with contempt. Indian leaders can argue that other great powers have done the same, but the argument misunderstands the very nature and purpose of India’s rise, the unique role that ideals must play in India’s success.

To be sure there are steps India can take to reverse this course. If it accepts international mediation in Kashmir, if it becomes a neutral partner for peace in Burma and Nepal, and if it opens its markets to greater regional trade, it may yet salvage its position as the democratic counter-power to China. But these are long-term solutions, and the window to pursue them is shrinking.

Maha Rafi Atal is a journalist in New York, recently returned from India, Pakistan, and Nepal where she was a correspondent for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

 

[tanlixiang28776]

Seems like you guys are having an interesting chit chat.

Like we do with our own friends across the border.

It wasn't a chit chat, so much as a mutual masturbation session on the first few posts in the thread.

 

[faznapaki]

our friendship with china is an example to the world!

 

[cross1993]

Your posts are laced with the typical Sinophobia common to the China-bashers on this forum. China's rise must really bother you inside. We live in a nuclear age (as you very well know!) and these simple naval exercises hardly bothers China. Stay safe buddy.

Now Japan can not find a "kamikaze". Look at this:

放射能汚染の懸念が一層高まる事態に、自衛隊側からは怒りや懸念の声が噴出した。関係機関の連携不足もあらわになった。

　３号機の爆発で自衛官４人の負傷者を出した防衛省。「安全だと言われ、それを信じて作業をしたら事故が起きた。これからどうするかは、もはや自衛隊と東電側だけで判断できるレベルを超えている」。同省幹部は重苦しい表情で話す。

　自衛隊はこれまで、中央特殊武器防護隊など約２００人が、原発周辺で炉の冷却や住民の除染などの活動を続けてきた。東電や保安院側が「安全だ」として作業を要請したためだ。

　炉への給水活動は、これまで訓練もしたことがない。爆発の恐れがある中で、作業は「まさに命がけ」（同省幹部）。「我々は放射能の防護はできるが、原子炉の構造に特段の知識があるわけではない。安全だと言われれば、危険だと思っていても信じてやるしかなかった」。別の幹部は唇をかんだ。

（2011年3月15日14時47分 読売新聞）

 

[BigTree.CN]

I am not so sure if the strategy is that quiet, because it seems to be making quite a little noise, at least in this forum.

 

[Vinod2070]

Time to be a better neighbor, India. If you don't, China will. - CSMonitor.com

President Obama's trip to India underscored India's importance in global security and global finances – a democratic counter to an aggressive China. But India's poor foreign policy and botched regional relations have been holding it back.

By Maha Rafi Atal / November 9, 2010

New York
On Sunday, President Obama met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. They discussed opportunities for expanded Indo-American trade, and both leaders highlighted the strategic importance of a strong and prosperous India in the face of Chinese expansion. But Prime Minister Singh did not acknowledge, and President Obama did not bring up, the most important obstacle to India’s success: its poor regional relationships.

From the outset, India’s promise as a rival to China has been that it is a power apart. It could not beat Beijing in a race for pure growth or military might. But in a contest over principles, India’s democratic progress offers the region a model that China cannot match. India should be a partner for countries seeking a fair alternative to alliance with its authoritarian neighbor.

But India is losing this contest, and it is losing it close to home. Now, as President Obama leaves India, it is worth asking: Why isn’t South Asia’s richest country leading more effectively in South Asia?

China is flexing its muscle
China is certainly flexing its muscle. Last month, it sought to restrict exports of rare earth minerals to Japan, made overtures to a secession movement in southern Sudan, and wrestled with the G20 over its currency and trade imbalance.

Nowhere has China been more assertive than in South Asia. In a strategy it calls the “string of pearls,” China is building ports and infrastructure in Bangladesh and Pakistan; digging up minerals in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and refining hydropower in Nepal and Afghanistan.

According to the International Monetary Fund, China’s trade with India’s neighbors totaled $16 billion in 2008, growing at 14 percent annually. India’s regional trade was barely holding steady at $11 billion

India's overconfidence
Yet China’s success in the Subcontinent reflects India’s own foreign policy blunders.

First, India has been overconfident, assuming that regional neighbors would naturally choose it over Beijing without providing them with positive incentives to do so. That is the case in Bangladesh, a desperately poor country created with the assistance of Indian forces, whose multiple requests for economic aid and greater bilateral trade India has rebuffed. While Bangladeshis wonder why India does not do more, India wonders why Bangladesh is not more appreciative.

Beijing capitalizes on the gap between them.

Interfering and overbearing
Second, India has been overbearing, giving selective support to political movements inside neighboring states.

In Nepal, India backed a feudal aristocracy for four decades, reinstating the monarchy by force after repeated popular revolts. It trained the Nepalese military, and orchestrated political marriages between Nepalese aristocrats and wealthy Indian families. Pushing India out became the top priority of the Maoist guerilla movement that has majority support and an informal alliance with China.

As the UN peace mission holding Nepal together prepares to close in January, India is pitted against China to control the postwar settlement, with Nepal’s critical water resources (about 83,000 megawatts of hydropower) at stake. The confrontation is reminiscent of the situation in Burma (Myanmar), where China and India spent $10 billion last year to secure the support of a military junta guilty of abusing its own subjects.

As the weaker power, India has more to fear from these confrontations.

Shutting out the region
Third, India has been suspicious, choosing to shut out the region when relations go sour rather than addressing underlying tensions.

Earlier this year, the government announced an immigration regime that will restrict multiple entry visas. Multinationals have protested the move as a blow to business travelers from the West and the Persian Gulf, but its greatest victims are migrant laborers from Bangladesh and Nepal. Many will turn to China for employment instead; others will enter illegally, bringing crime with them.

Nowhere has suspicion been more crippling to Indian policy than in the case of Pakistan. So long as Kashmiri militants – with historic ties to Pakistan – continue to operate inside India, India maintains it cannot meet with Pakistan over the disputed border, or over critical resources like water and gas. But it is the ongoing dispute that creates the very basis for this militancy. In a country with porous mountain borders, such threats are virtually impossible to block out by force

Yet New Delhi means to try.

US as accomplice to India's bad policy
Unfortunately, the United States has been an accomplice to India’s regional isolationism. In 2008, pressure from Washington shut down a natural gas project involving India, Pakistan, and Iran. Last year, Present Obama briefly considered appointing Amb. Richard Holbrooke as a regional envoy, with the authority to conduct dialogue between India and Pakistan, but narrowed his brief to Afghanistan and Pakistan over Indian opposition.

Asked about Pakistan at a town hall meeting in New Delhi on Sunday, the president reiterated that the United States would not intervene in the Kashmir dispute. Yet without an Indo-Pak peace, no strategy for Afghanistan can move forward.

The trappings of global status, without the substance
The West has lavished India with the trappings of global status: a seat at the G20, a temporary seat at the UN Security Council that may open the door to a permanent one, a controversial US-India nuclear deal, and two pending defense trades worth more than $15 billion dollars.

To read Indian newspapers or speak to diplomats is to believe that these gestures represent global influence. But in fact, they signal the rise of a Potemkin hegemon. If India is encircled by China’s string of pearls, and if migrants and militants compromise its borders, then it will be forced to waste its economic resources putting out local fires, unable to project power further afield.

Moreover, as they watch this regional saga, potential partners in Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia see India as a country that treats its neighbors with contempt. Indian leaders can argue that other great powers have done the same, but the argument misunderstands the very nature and purpose of India’s rise, the unique role that ideals must play in India’s success.

To be sure there are steps India can take to reverse this course. If it accepts international mediation in Kashmir, if it becomes a neutral partner for peace in Burma and Nepal, and if it opens its markets to greater regional trade, it may yet salvage its position as the democratic counter-power to China. But these are long-term solutions, and the window to pursue them is shrinking.

Maha Rafi Atal is a journalist in New York, recently returned from India, Pakistan, and Nepal where she was a correspondent for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Many of the points are indeed valid. Indian diplomacy with its neighbors has a scope to improve. Especially the ones with whom we have no enmity. We have provided China an opening. Not that China has great relations with its own neighbors. They have found some willing partners in South Asia who define their nationalism in terms of being anti India.

Some of the opinions are really pathetic and lack even basic facts. Just by sheer chance, they were the ones which were highlighted.

e.g.

The trappings of global status, without the substance
The West has lavished India with the trappings of global status: a seat at the G20, a temporary seat at the UN Security Council that may open the door to a permanent one, a controversial US-India nuclear deal, and two pending defense trades worth more than $15 billion dollars.

Now G-20 are the 20 top economies in the world. There are economies that are bigger that India in this group and there are economies whoch are smaller. How is this the West "lavishing" anything!

Same goes for UN seat. India was elected to it as any country does. The nuclear deal and defense deals are done in mutual interest or commercial deals.

But in fact, they signal the rise of a Potemkin hegemon.

How do they signal this?

Yes, Indian needs to improve relations with its neighbors. It is going to be a two way street. We can go more than half way on our part.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

And may the best one win!

This is the first time I'm going to agree with you.

Let us wait and see, and may the best one win.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

This is the first time I'm going to agree with you.

Let us wait and see, and may the best one win.

\

It is not that I want anyone to agree with me.

I like to see a situation that the facts reveal.

I prefer to be an analyst than a jingoist.

Unless one accepts the truth analysed from the facts, one will only be the loser.

I hate no one even though the poster vapercn hates Japan for the 100 years of National Shame.

I remember 1962, but does that make me hate the Chinese? No.

It only makes me careful, but hate? No, why should I hate?

Did I not feel sad when the earthquake happened in Sichuan. Of course I did. People died. If i were there I would have died. What have their poor people who died done against me? Why should I hate?

I admired the way Hu (was it Hu?) went and supervised the relief out there. I was proud of him. He is a good man who cares for his people. I wished that our politicians were as concerned and good human as him.

No, I hate none. I learn from all!

But will that stop me from telling what I feel? No.

I am not a diplomat, though I wish I were!

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Unless one accepts the truth analysed from the facts, one will only be the loser.

There is no "truth" about the future though.

It is all just predictions.

Which is why I said, that I will "wait and see".